Pensions

Farmers never retire.

I think you're right. A farming friend of ours is 85. He was at our house grumbling that he can't get on to the fields because they are so soggy despite being at the top of a hill.

For once I've been lucky with the changes to the Teachers' pension scheme which changed in 2015, Due to my advanced years I'm a 'protected' member and will get my pension based on my final year's salary (or the best in the last ten years) and a lump sum. For others it's now a career average and no lump sum!

I took early retirement ( redundancy by any other name!) at 50 with a pension of about half my salary. It did enable me to work part-time for the remainder of my working life and reduce my stress levels. Since my state pension kicked in, things haven't been too bad. The downside is the poor return on savings. I am surprised at the amount of bleating about mortgage costs given the low rates that people are enjoying notwithstanding housing costs.

have to agree. We had to endure high mortgage rates and now we have non existent savings interest rates.....

Do not envey their mortgages though so I guess parity prevails.

For once I've been lucky with the changes to the Teachers' pension scheme which changed in 2015, Due to my advanced years I'm a 'protected' member and will get my pension based on my final year's salary (or the best in the last ten years) and a lump sum. For others it's now a career average and no lump sum!

Good  for you Cornersteady.. I believe most public service employees although having  a better than average pension cannot access their pension pots in line with the recent govt changes either?

Just to clarify a couple of points - 

Employees were never allowed a 'holiday' from paying into their pension fund, only employers......and so many of them did and this has been one of the reasons why the funds are often not now adequate to cover the liabiliites and why most final salary schemes ended.

The changes introduced by Gordon Brown were that he removed the tax free status that pension funds used to enjoy when receiving dividends on share investments. He argued that the pension funds would make up for that by the increased  dividends as a result of him de-regulating the stock market. Well we all now know how well that went!

Incidently, government employer's pension funds are topped up by the tax payer under the 'plenty more where that came from' school of thought.

For once I've been lucky with the changes to the Teachers' pension scheme which changed in 2015, Due to my advanced years I'm a 'protected' member and will get my pension based on my final year's salary (or the best in the last ten years) and a lump sum. For others it's now a career average and no lump sum!

Write your comments here..."average of the best three years in the last ten"is what I believe is in the TPS -or final year ,if greater.Check with Mowden House or your PfnlAssn.CS.

Ian, the Govt employees work for the nation, we are the nation. I'm happy to contribute to their pensions, they deserve a decent pension, particularly Teachers as they educate the following generations

Ian, the Govt employees work for the nation, we are the nation. I'm happy to contribute to their pensions, they deserve a decent pension, particularly Teachers as they educate the following generations

And very grateful we are too! 

Rocky.....a private sector worker, who cannot have a final salary pension, would have to pay out maybe 30% of their salary each week / month in order to obtain an annuity that paid a similar amount to a final salary pension (and therefore is unlikely to get anything like as good a pension as a government employee).

Is it right that this person should then pay (via taxation) for the government worker to have that better pension?

This is a genuine question, because Mrs H was a local government worker until she took early retirement at 53 on a good pension and I finished work at 55 and manage with my personal pension provision, so I have a foot in both camps (but still have views on what I thonk is fair).